Before being displayed by a progressive display device, NTSC video fields need to be deinterlaced first. As displayed on the progressive display device, the image quality of the deinterlaced fields depends on the type of deinterlacing process performed on the fields.
On the one hand, if the fields have originated from film frames by 3:2 pull-down, then deinterlacing the fields simply means merging fields that have originated from the same frame. As such, deinterlacing 3:2 pull-downed fields produces the best image quality on a progressive display device. However, on the other hand, if the fields are not generated by 3:2 pull-down but are deinterlaced as such, then the image quality of the progressively displayed images an be degraded by undesirable image saw-tooth.